Tree Spiker—From Earth First to Lowbagging: My Struggles in Radical Environmental Action

Roselle—cofounder of the Rainforest Action Network and Earth First!—offers a memoir of his career in radical activism—from teenage Yippie to career environmentalist, who admits he shares his “generation's complicity in creating the mess we are in today” and is now fighting against mountaintop-removal coal mining in Appalachia. His rollicking adventures make for entertaining reading: he is jailed after hanging an anti–acid rain sign over Mt. Rushmore, helps Woody Harrelson climb the Golden Gate Bridge to protest the redwood logging and spikes trees (a form of protest in which metal spikes are hammered into a tree trunk to make the tree harder to cut down). Did he really throw Abbie Hoffman in a pool in Miami? Did he really discuss the future of Costa Rican rainforests with future president José María Figueres over a bloody steak and a bottle of whiskey? Roselle is more interested in spinning a good yarn than supporting some of his wilder stories. He embraces every stereotype he embodies and celebrates the impact he and his collaborators have had on the past 30 years of environmental policy. (Sept.)